Down the Road: The Fall of Austin

by Bowie Ibarra

  His father was an avid hunter, and kept a vault filled with firearms. Mike felt relieved. It was soothing to know his family would, potentially, be protected. He could still see his mother wearing one of her many fancy embroidered shirts in the middle of the apocalypse. After some brief small talk, Mike assured his mother he would be fine in Austin.

  “The city needs me right now,” he said, feeling kind of like a knight.

  “I don’t know what I can do right now, exactly, but I’m trying to keep in mind why I became a cop in the first place—before I lost the enthusiasm. You know, before reality. I know I can help, I just—”

  “You just take care of yourself, son. We’ll be fine. This will all blow over soon.”

  “Take care, mom.”

  “I love you, son.”

  “I love you, too, mom.”

  The two said their goodbyes, and not one second after Mike put the receiver back in place, another knock came at the door.

  Who the fuck is that asshole looking for?

  Taking his gun back in hand, he approached the door again. He peered through the peephole.

  It was Derek.

  Mike pushed the couch away from the door, unlatched the chain, unlocked the handle, and opened the door.

  Derek neglected pleasantries. “Get your uniform on, man,” he said, almost too excitedly. “We gotta roll.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I’ll explain in a minute. Just get your shit on.”

  The television continued its report: “All citizens are to report to any of the following FEMA centers nearest where you live: Bowie High School, Crockett High School, Travis High School, YMCA

  central…”

  Mike barely heard the newscast as he fit himself into his modern day shining armor. Far from the pure white of the old symbols of goodness, it was a police-state midnight blue. He buckled his belt and looked in the mirror. Austin Police Department’s own—and perhaps only—white knight was ready. He couldn’t help but think this might be the last time he would look at himself in the mirror. He gulped, considering the very real prospect.

  Walking to the door, he joined his silent partner for their walk to their police cruiser. All around them the apartment complex was in chaos. People screaming. Gunshots. Yelling. It felt like a prison riot. People needed help. But Mike knew if he started here he would never get out. Whatever plan Derek had for him was to be revealed soon, and he trusted his partner not to lead him astray. Mostly.

  As they pulled out of the parking lot, the streets were filled with frenzied pockets of people in panic.

  “We’ve been assigned to facilitate traffic flow at south I-35 and William Cannon.”

  What? Mike smelled bullshit right away.

  “Listen, the shit’s really hitting the fan. That girl that was sent to the hospital... You know, from the apartment?”

  Mike pictured the young girl—Brandi, her name was—sweet and innocent and polite even through it all. “Yeah? What about her?”

  “Attacked two cops at the hospital. Bit them, then bit four more people in the waiting room. This thing has to be something viral.”

  “If it’s viral, then those cops must be sick, too.”

  Derek sat silent, considering the possibility.

  “It’s gotta be,” Mike said. “You know?”

  “It’s official now. Homeland Security took over HQ, by the way. They’re running the show now. They sent SWAT teams to Westlake Hills to secure portions of the neighborhoods there.”

  “Imagine that,” Mike said.

  In both their views, in the middle of the street, a pedestrian was attacked by another and bit with ferocious teeth. Derek drove around the attack, ignoring it like the plague that it was.

  “Derek... didn’t you see that?” Mike asked.

  “Yep.”

  “So we’re just not going to stop, huh? For anything?”

  “No time, my friend. We’re facing a new world. Order is not going to be around for a while and I’m going to get mine before it’s all over.”

  “Hang on, man,” Mike said. “Where are you taking me?”

  Derek smiled. “Play along, Mike. Relax. Listen, I don’t know exactly what is going on and for how long, but we have a chance to make some bones, man.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Listen, just follow my lead,” Derek said, putting on his overheads so he could run a red light.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  9:15 AM

  Two blocks south of William Cannon on IH-35

  IH-35 South out of Austin was an absolute mess. The stop and go traffic that was a hallmark of Austin workdays was stalled even more due to an overturned 18-wheeler that had jack-knifed further south near the Slaughter exit. (The street name Slaughter was somehow appropriate to the current state of affairs, Mike figured.)

  A Blazer had flipped into the ditch by the highway up the road near the wreck. Luggage was thrown off of the top of the vehicle and was scattered on the ground. A blonde man in a blue shirt and slacks was confused, scratching his head, trying to figure out how he was going to get it back on its wheels.

  Officers Mike Runyard and Derek Tucker pulled up on the side of the southern strip of south IH-35 just about a mile south of William Cannon. They parked right behind an empty APD car.

  Mike and Derek stepped out of their vehicle and approached the empty APD car. Both doors were open. No evidence of blood or violence. It was Mike’s opinion that the officers had abruptly chosen to ditch their vehicle. And Derek knew that a lot of officers were deserting the force, and he figured this was another example of it.

  “Follow me,” Derek said, moving toward the access road. He was marching to a line of cars that had attempted to cut through the grassy median to move to the access road, but were stuck in the median due to the congestion.

  Three cars were moving in a line across the median, a clear violation of the law. Derek approached the one closest to the highway. He signaled for the driver to roll down his window. The man complied.

  “Problem, officer?”

  “Well, sir, you know you’re not to cross the white line into the median. That’s illegal.”

  “Are you kidding me?” the man said. Mike thought the same thing.

  “No, sir. I’m not.” Derek was committed to the defense of the law.

  The man’s wife, sitting next to him, was attempting to put a lid on her husband’s bad temper to no avail. Two small children, no older than five or six, sat frightened in the back seat.

  “Listen, asshole. In case you haven’t noticed, the world is done for. And…”

  Derek quickly retook control of the situation, throwing the car door open.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” The man did not expect the move. But if the world was done for, then the rules had changed.

  Derek unleashed his tazer on the man. The family screamed as their father, loyal and true patriarch, was humiliated in front of those he loved most.

  Derek gritted his teeth and smiled, like a bulldog spotting a wounded bird. He watched the man twitch and flail in the seat, confined by his seatbelt he continued to lawfully wear. The screaming family was like a chorus of banshees, voicing their disapproval of the torture in sad screams.

  Mike was officially scared. They had nowhere near the numbers they would need if a riot broke out—(rule change)—and he was not going to be a part of an unannounced bum rush.

  “I’ll get the next car,” Mike said.

  He walked to the next car, expecting the crowd to go apeshit. Expecting to get overrun. Expecting a beatdown.

  But none of that happened. The populace had clearly been desensitized—anesthetized to the force of the police state.

  Derek finally let loose on the trigger, unbuckled the dazed man, and threw him to the pavement. By the time the man recovered, his hands had been zip-tied behind his back.

  “Please don’t hurt my family,” the man begged. “Please. I’m sorry I broke the law.”

  Derek wa
nted to set an example, a show of force to make sure everyone who witnessed the event would know not to fuck with him.

  Strength through fear.

  Derek proceeded to zip-tie the rest of the family while Mike moved to the next vehicle.

  The man rolled down his window.

  “Please, sir,” he was already pleading, having seen what Derek was doing, “I don’t want any trouble.”

  Mike put on his best Thespian mask. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. The mask assured the family of his sincerity.

  “What’s going on?” the man asked.

  “Just listen to me,” Mike said softly, watching Derek parade the ziptiebound family in front of the cars on the access road and off to the side of the road. He sat the family down in a patch of grass under a tree. The children cried as their parents sat helpless and exposed.

  Mike took out a notebook, feigning for Derek that he was executing some kind of administrative work. The family sat silent in the car as Mike scribbled random jibberish on the ticket book.

  eggs bacon simpsons homer bart peter griffin beer section 2 sitting in car avoiding problem seinfeld cavalier chrysler volvo wagon four wheel drive hamburger 26 big beef burrito supreme

  Wait. Scratch that.

  Why am I such a coward?

  Whoa. Scratch that, too.

  I’m in deep shit deep shit deep shit

  It drew him back briefly to his youth, when he naïvely accompanied some neighborhood delinquents looking for trouble. He was only nine and the older boys were both fourteen. Mike knew better than to hang out with them, as they were both very cruel and abusive towards him. They always punched his arms or back with heavy hands and generally played rough with him on the sunny Texas afternoons. On this day, he would finally wise up and stop taking the abuse.

  Ruben and Miguel were always looking for mischief, as Mike would always hear about straight from their own mouths after the deeds were done. The trio were riding their bikes one Saturday afternoon when Ruben got a wild hair to do something that would give him his mischievous fix.

  “Hey, Dumbyard. You know where LaCroix went?”

  The LaCroix’s were friends of the Runyard family, and regularly held soirees at each other’s houses. Raymond LaCroix was their nine-year old son and Mike’s friend. They always called him by his last name. It made them think they could speak French.

  “They went to Dallas,” Mike said, somehow feeling guilty.

  “You and your family get along with them pretty good. Your parents have keys to their house?”

  The subtext was immediately clear, and Mike wanted no part of it.

  “C’mon, Dumbyard,” Miguel said. “Your parents have keys to their house, don’t they?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Ruben frogged Runyard in the back. It was a kind of punch with the knuckle of the middle finger extended slightly forward. It was a cruel shot to the spine that was bruising and painful. The pain throbbed on his back, and he cringed. Tears welled up in his eyes, but were quickly wiped away. The boys laughed at him.

  “C’mon, Mike the Dyke. Go get us the keys.”

  Mike didn’t know whether or not his parents had keys, but it provided an opportunity to get away.

  “All right, just give me a minute,” Mike had said. He jumped on his 80’s brown Huffy Dirtmaster and rode it to his front yard. Jumping off the bike, he started running to the house. He knew his plan of escape must now be exposed, and knew any minute the guys would ride their bikes to his yard and beat him up. The mere yards to his doorstep felt like miles. He could feel them hot on his heels even though they remained in Ruben’s yard across the street. The door still open, he twisted the knob and dashed inside the house. He closed the door quickly behind him, half expecting the boys to bang into it and pound on the door. Mike twisted the lock and let out a sigh of relief amid his bated breath. He was safe.

  He caught his breath, then peeked out the window.

  Like the morons they were, the boys sat on their bikes waiting for Mike to return.

  Five minutes. Then ten turned to fifteen. Mike wondered if they would ever leave. Eventually they lost interest and rode away.

  And now, standing in the median just off of south IH-35 near William Cannon, he knew he couldn’t save everyone from his devious colleague, but he could help some, at least.

  He handed the father a ticket. The man looked at it. The nonsensical words and phrases scribbled on the paper reminded him of the writings of a small child. But the intent of the scribblings

  was clear.

  “Thank you,” the man whispered.

  The spring sun was poking through the clouds, warming the city and adding some discomfort to the noxious fumes coughing from the tailpipes of the backed-up vehicles.

  Derek walked to another vehicle on the access road, a Green Nissan Maxima. Mike moved to another vehicle.

  Derek made no excuses for his next shakedown. The man lowered his window.

  “Sir, you see those people over there?” he said, indicating the bound, detained, and shaken family. Before the man could answer, Derek continued, “You and your wife will be joining them now if you don’t pass on to me every bit of dough in your wallet. And right now.”

  Rule change.

  The couple shared a nervous glance. It wasn’t so much the money in their pockets, but the large satchel of cash in the back seat. The chaos of the world had initiated a run of the banks, and the couple had claimed their share.

  And then some.

  “You can have whatever you want, sir,” the man said as casually as possible. He kept a pistol stowed away in a small pocket in the door just within reach as he reached for his wallet. His wife had placed her pistol in the same pocket on her side, and made sure her legs obscured view of it.

  The man handed the entire wallet to Derek. The two hundred dollars within the worn leather made him very happy. He removed the cash and tossed the wallet back at the man. The man tried to muster up his best frown, trying to appear as if he were robbed of everything he had.

  Derek looked to the woman. “Your purse, ma’am?”

  She handed it to him with no argument. He pulled out her wallet and threw the bag back at her. He opened the wallet and found three crisp hundreds and a couple of twenties.

  It was fortuitous. Maybe a little bit too fortuitous.

  Something was peculiar to Derek now, and his cop radar was going off. He looked toward Mike, who was writing another ticket. Good man, he thought. Derek figured he wouldn’t need his help anyway. The couple looked harmless enough. After all, he was the only one armed. Or so he thought.

  “Just a little over five hundred dollars between the two of you,” he whispered suspiciously.

  Before he could finish his thought, the woman chimed in, “Five hundred is the limit per day at the ATM.”

  It was actually three hundred, but she gambled that Derek didn’t know that.

  And he didn’t.

  Derek looked at the line of cars behind him. A dollar sign floated over each and every one. No sense continuing the shakedown despite the suspicions. “Have a nice day,” he said, walking away from the vehicle and moving to the next car, which was behind the one Mike was working. The occupant rolled down their window.

  Suddenly, an engine revved.

  A small collision resounded.

  Rubber burned into the road.

  Derek was about to begin the same schpiel he had given the others when out of nowhere a black ’93 Chevy Cavalier tore out of line and barreled straight into him. The low-to-the-ground Cavalier caught Derek at the knees. As his ligaments and joints snapped, crackled, and popped, he could hear every break, tear, and rip his body was going through even over the revving of the vehicular Black Death’s engine. As his lower body was being consumed by the undercarriage and his upper body was twisting unnaturally, soon to be slammed face first onto the hood, his last conscious thought was of the pancakes he ate just that morning for breakfast. It was his first ti
me to use Aunt Jemima syrup over Log Cabin. He had grabbed the bottle by accident from the store weeks earlier. His family had never bought Aunt Jemima. This morning, he realized how much he had missed out on it in terms of flavor and enjoyment. Aunt Jemima pancake syrup was heads above Log Cabin. As his face slammed into the hood of the car before being gobbled by the undercarriage and the warm gravel road, he was glad he had a chance to taste it just once. Nothing else came to mind once he was knocked unconscious by the hood. He slammed into it so hard a small indention of his face was made, with slight suggestions as to his contours. The car and the road swallowed him, veritably chomping and tearing at his body and limbs. His twisted and tattered remains were spit out of the rear of the vehicle like excrement, only to be ground down even further by a massive and jacked-up Dodge Ram. The large and heavy wheels added insult to injury as it crushed the remnants of Derek’s knees and legs into mincemeat. Ragged and misshapen like a wet towel, Derek’s remains lay quietly on the side of the road as a stampede of cars began a demolition derby of liberation, racing towards freedom. They all followed the leaders in the phantom black Cavalier and big maroon Dodge Ram.

  Having hesitated just long enough, Mike was in deep trouble as the compact Chevy Death Dealer was aiming for him. Shocked into disbelief, Mike stood frozen, his mouth agape. His ex-girlfriend owned a blue Cavalier of the same year. He momentarily thought it was her as the morning sun was in his face. But his brain, desperate for survival, kicked him back to reality, and he regained his senses in time to spring up into the air away from the car.

  His evasive maneuver was just enough to avoid Derek’s fate, but not enough to remain uninjured. The front end clipped his ankles. It propelled him in the same direction he had leapt to, but spun him like a pinwheel. He fell to the dirt and pavement with a scrape-inducing slide. Mike groaned in pain not only at the unsightly scrapes across his arms, the unforgiving and gravel-strewn road claiming pieces of his skin as their own, but for his severely sprained ankles. He rolled just in time to avoid the big maroon Dodge.

  He immediately rose to a knee. Rocks dug into his kneecap, and the weight on his ankles sent lightning bolts of pain through his body.